Twitter is the Swiss army knife of Social Media and the net — you could use it to replace your email and all the social media services you use. You would not get all the special functions - only the basic features. But then again Twitter is more.
Just to give some ideas about the ways to use Twitter I give five examples in this lesson which will be posted in five parts this week.
1. A general news channel
To be an active Twitter user you don't have to tweet at all. But you can use Twitter or similar services to keep yourself updated about whatever you are interested in. To have a general news service of what is happening you just choose some news media to follow.
For most of my life newspapers and television were my main source of news. For some years I learned most of the breaking news through Facebook. Now Twitter seems to have become my main source of news, followed by radio (the real radio!). Whatever media you follow, be sure to include many sources in your news feed, because there are no objective media, they all have an agenda to serve.
But is not a news story consisting of maximum 140 character too brief and shallow?* Yes, if the story is in that message. But news tweets are most often headlines followed by a link to a story, often with links to more in-depth background articles on the topic.
 |
| Twitter lets you create lists for different purposes. This is my News-list which gives me an excellent view of the news around the world. |
On the picture you see a stream of news you can create on Twitter. (Go to Me/Lists/Create new list)
Here are some lists of mine you can view to get the idea:
News
Football
TAMK international media programme students
The best things about lists:
If you follow on Twitter all users you might be interested in you will find yourself in trouble; the feed is so intense you would not have time for anything else than reading your Twitter feed.
Designing lists solves this problem, here's an example: @ftransfers (footballtransfers) and @premierleague (English Premier League) are most relevant Twitter accounts for a football enthusiast like me, but they are so active they occupied a too dominant role in my Twitter feed.
My solution: I stopped being a follower of them but kept them on my Football list; and on Saturday afternoons when nothing else than football matters, I follow only my Twitter Football channel.
* And short stories are not necessarily shallow. It is told Ernest Hemingway considered this six word story one of his best works: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”
The lesson about Twitter, parts 1-5:
1. A general news channel (lists)
2. A specific news channel (hash tags)
3. A better search engine than Google?
4. A massive database
5. Teleportation machine and collaborative notebook
Twitter is handy when it comes to finding out things fast, especially things that relate to English language countries but I still think that it is shallow just because it is so self-centered. Very rarely there is actual conversation going on. But true, it is kind of cool to be one of those persons who crashed Twitter while watching the Oscars and retweeting the famous group selfie.
ReplyDelete